Circe or Penelope? An Analysis of the Problematique of Latin-American Women in Exile

Abstract

This paper deals with the experience of exiled women and the analysis of the processes they experience over time while living away from their home country. Indeed, in the exile situation, men and women do certainly undergo similar experiences, but we argue that the specific gender experience can attribute a different meaning to these common processes. We cannot grasp the complexity of exile without analysing the specific way by which women live this process. The meaning which women, as a social group, give to the exile experience is far from being the same as men, even if both share the same social imaginaire. Nevertheless, even in their specificity, women are far from being a homogeneous group: we must also analyse the differences in the way different groups of women interpret exile. This article proposes to show, at the same time, the universal elements which characterize women’s experience in exile, the feminine specificity in the transculturation process and the diversity of the feminine paths in exile.